Saudi Arabia again - Saudi girl facing possible death in Bangkok Airport
- Thread starter dowie
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Caporegime
I expect this kind of story to become a Daily event soon, not even denting social media much.
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I wonder what the Thai for "Foot in mouth" is?
Soldato
Has there been any serious consequences at all for the hacking up of the journalist?
A few CEOS pulled out of an investment conference. May said she was upset. Seriously anything else?
The Saudis have been getting away with this stuff for along time and will continue to do so.
Caporegime
Very good news. I don't understand why she's facing issues for not having a Thai visa though considering she was on a connecting flight to Australia.
Better news if she gets somewhere safe - I suspect after "assurances" from SA she won't be killed they will still try and release her to them
and inevitably that will be the last anyone will see of her.When females are arrested in SA they require their guardians consent for release, even without charges. She could be detained for a very long time.
I think there is a charge like "parental disobedience" or similar, I literally just read it somewhere but have the memory of a goldfish.
I think there is a charge like "parental disobedience" or similar, I literally just read it somewhere but have the memory of a goldfish.
Soldato
SA have invested in other areas over the last few decades so that they are more than just a giant oil barrel. I can't see many major power butting heads with them over immoral goings on within their country. As much as governments and politicians call out other places on human right issues, it never seems to be done for good but rather to smear other governments or some other political reason. We will continue to turn a blind eye - Oil or no oil.
She's not out of the woods yet, the UNHCR seemed to suggest earlier she was under their protection, though conflicting reports now indicate she's in Thai police custody and has been taken "somewhere safe".
In other developments her father (a regional governor in Saudi Arabia so by all accounts quite a powerful figure there) is apparently on his way to Thailand now. Hopefully though with the amount of media attention this has generated the Thai authorities won't now want to lose face and deport her.
It seems the passport wasn't actually confiscated form her directly by a Saudi official when she arrived in Bangkok but rather it was a security manager from Kuwait Airlines who took her passport, ostensibly to help with some visa issue or something, and handed it to the Saudis.... this is all to set up the pretence that it is all a simple immigration issue and that Thailand would have been simply following their laws in sending her back. (According to her own account she actually did have a return flight and hotel reservation etc.. regardless) The Guardian seems to have confirmed that her story re: having a tourist visa for Australia checks out ergo the Thais are, as expected, bare faced liars who have been complicit in this charade until it got so much press attention.
Unfortunately Thailand is currently a military dictatorship at the moment, they're also not a signatory of the 1951 refugee convention so claiming asylum there is unfortunately not relevant, she's basically like any other immigrant.
The Thais are still coming out with some line about how she didn't have the proper documents and so that is why they were due to deport her etc.. Slightly amusingly the Thais are also being summoned to meet the Saudis to explain why they didn't deport her....
The Saudi Embassy is still being rather comical on twitter with their explanation which is about as credible as "yeah he left the consulate, he definitely wasn't murdered" and various Saudis are playing along with the official line that it is a simple immigration issue etc... some Saudis are trying to excuse the real narrative too and coming out with a load of stuff along the lines of "well what about the rights of her family" etc.. just a completely different and rather broken mindset/culture among some of them.
Presumably that was her intention before this happened.
That was a Princess from Dubai, she wasn't seen or heard from since then until recently when there was some rather awkward press footage shot with some former Irish politician or President or something who now works for the UN.... and sadly this Irish woman just went along with the "yeah she's fine, nothing to see here guys" line from the UAE. She also has a sister who managed to flee to London and was briefly living in Elephant and Castle but was later kidnapped by the UAE in the early 00s - not clear how they then got her out of the country. The police did investigate it over here in spite of the ruler of Dubai trying to get it all covered up.
It is a bit sad that various other countries are happy to be complicit in this sort of thing - a similar case occurred last year too in the Philippines, another Saudi women trying to flee was kidnapped and brought back to Saudi by her uncles - there is a good chance she is now dead. Seemingly tying her up in duck tape and getting her through an international airport in the Philippines in full view of other passengers wasn't an issue for officials there, the pilot/airline didn't care either as it was a Saudi airline:
https://twitter.com/Moudhi90/status/853467748520931328
I do wonder how often this will happen in future, social media seems to have helped with this sort of thing a lot, so far some of the cases have been from quite well off women from powerful families (couple of princesses, the daughter of a regional governor), if female members of the elite are desperate for freedom to avoid a forced marriage and a lifetime of being treated as a child/property under strict Islamic rules then **** knows what it must be like for women even further down the food chain. There do seem to be feminist movements growing over there thanks to social media, there are women's rights activists currently locked up now for things like campaigning against the female driving ban etc.. I guess cases like this could be on the increase as more women want their independence. Unlike some feminists in the west who seem to be more preoccupied with arguments over identity politics and apparent pay gaps these women have a real struggle to deal with.
So far it seems that Thailand, India and the Philippines aren't exactly safe for stop overs for anyone fleeing - or at least they'd better have changed flights and got themselves clear of those countries (or got themselves a load of publicity) lest the gulf state they're fleeing from can likely get them back.
In other developments her father (a regional governor in Saudi Arabia so by all accounts quite a powerful figure there) is apparently on his way to Thailand now. Hopefully though with the amount of media attention this has generated the Thai authorities won't now want to lose face and deport her.
It seems the passport wasn't actually confiscated form her directly by a Saudi official when she arrived in Bangkok but rather it was a security manager from Kuwait Airlines who took her passport, ostensibly to help with some visa issue or something, and handed it to the Saudis.... this is all to set up the pretence that it is all a simple immigration issue and that Thailand would have been simply following their laws in sending her back. (According to her own account she actually did have a return flight and hotel reservation etc.. regardless) The Guardian seems to have confirmed that her story re: having a tourist visa for Australia checks out ergo the Thais are, as expected, bare faced liars who have been complicit in this charade until it got so much press attention.
Unfortunately Thailand is currently a military dictatorship at the moment, they're also not a signatory of the 1951 refugee convention so claiming asylum there is unfortunately not relevant, she's basically like any other immigrant.
The Thais are still coming out with some line about how she didn't have the proper documents and so that is why they were due to deport her etc.. Slightly amusingly the Thais are also being summoned to meet the Saudis to explain why they didn't deport her....
The Saudi Embassy is still being rather comical on twitter with their explanation which is about as credible as "yeah he left the consulate, he definitely wasn't murdered" and various Saudis are playing along with the official line that it is a simple immigration issue etc... some Saudis are trying to excuse the real narrative too and coming out with a load of stuff along the lines of "well what about the rights of her family" etc.. just a completely different and rather broken mindset/culture among some of them.
Presumably that was her intention before this happened.
That was a Princess from Dubai, she wasn't seen or heard from since then until recently when there was some rather awkward press footage shot with some former Irish politician or President or something who now works for the UN.... and sadly this Irish woman just went along with the "yeah she's fine, nothing to see here guys" line from the UAE. She also has a sister who managed to flee to London and was briefly living in Elephant and Castle but was later kidnapped by the UAE in the early 00s - not clear how they then got her out of the country. The police did investigate it over here in spite of the ruler of Dubai trying to get it all covered up.
It is a bit sad that various other countries are happy to be complicit in this sort of thing - a similar case occurred last year too in the Philippines, another Saudi women trying to flee was kidnapped and brought back to Saudi by her uncles - there is a good chance she is now dead. Seemingly tying her up in duck tape and getting her through an international airport in the Philippines in full view of other passengers wasn't an issue for officials there, the pilot/airline didn't care either as it was a Saudi airline:
https://twitter.com/Moudhi90/status/853467748520931328
I do wonder how often this will happen in future, social media seems to have helped with this sort of thing a lot, so far some of the cases have been from quite well off women from powerful families (couple of princesses, the daughter of a regional governor), if female members of the elite are desperate for freedom to avoid a forced marriage and a lifetime of being treated as a child/property under strict Islamic rules then **** knows what it must be like for women even further down the food chain. There do seem to be feminist movements growing over there thanks to social media, there are women's rights activists currently locked up now for things like campaigning against the female driving ban etc.. I guess cases like this could be on the increase as more women want their independence. Unlike some feminists in the west who seem to be more preoccupied with arguments over identity politics and apparent pay gaps these women have a real struggle to deal with.
So far it seems that Thailand, India and the Philippines aren't exactly safe for stop overs for anyone fleeing - or at least they'd better have changed flights and got themselves clear of those countries (or got themselves a load of publicity) lest the gulf state they're fleeing from can likely get them back.
Soldato
They’ll wait for the news cycle to start reporting on Gemma Collins falling through the ice, then while everyone’s distracted quietly hand her over to the Saudis.
Wheres our illustrious Prime Minister to denounce the Saudi's for being violently sexist? I mean parliament was captivated by Corbyn potentially saying "stupid woman" for like 20 minutes straight, yet here we are desperate to sell ammunition to kill Yemen children instead.
I do wonder.
I do wonder.
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Soldato
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We don't, we need them for defence contracts and use of their military bases as staging bases for our own forces to bomb/infiltrate freedom in the middle East and keep tabs on both China & Russia
Soldato
and one that our Government is happy to do multi £billion arms deals with so they can mercilessly slay the population of Yemen.
Soldato
Saw a couple of tweets from Saudis (or at least people with the Saudi flag in their profile) responding to people covering this. Comments about "what about the rights of her parents" and "you incite to her parents with this". All about family honour and talking about her like she's property of her parents.
The USA very much did need them for oil up until quite recently, when technological advances made home-produced shale oil suddenly viable for the States. The Saudis did their best to undercut the market and kill the shale oil industry before it could get off the ground, attempting to deny it initial funding by tanking their own oil price and making it no longer worthwhile. But I don't think they succeeded so the situation is now different, as you point out.
Soldato
You're right, thanks for the correction. Careless of me as I've actually watched the full video she recorded before her escape attempt in case something happened. It did happen and that video may be the last freely spoken words we ever hear from her. The vague photos they put out of her a year later I would honestly not have recognized her. She looked barely there.
Soldato
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It's a shame they didn't succeed because I view Shale industry as a greater potential ecological disaster waiting to happen more than burning all that Saudi oil
Soldato
Really? Because of fracking?
Personally I wish they'd just massively invest in Nuclear as the cleanest and most productive solution.
Soldato
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I don't think fracking is geologically safe and the crap they pump in to get the gas out also comes with it's own hazards which could find its way into the water table
Nuclear is okay until something goes wrong, then it's really really bad not to mention we don't really have anyway to dispose of the waste but bury it underground and hope for the best
Of all the methods, Solar seems the best but it's not efficient enough for our demands